tomorrow i'm getting a new Q9550 for my rig posted below, i think it comes with thermal paste pre-applied, but i want to buy the Artic Cooling MX2, should i go with the MX2 or stick with whatever Intel apllied in the factory?

Lapping is polishing to remove surface irregularities allowing the TIM to better transfer heat from the cpu to the heat sink. RAID for performance I suppose is the question because there are many types of RAID. RAID0 requires a minimum of 2 HDD and is like running memory in dual channel versus single channel, you will get a performance increase but if one drive fails then all data is lost.

Lapping is polishing to remove surface irregularities allowing the TIM to better transfer heat from the cpu to the heat sink. RAID for performance I suppose is the question because there are many types of RAID. RAID0 requires a minimum of 2 HDD and is like running memory in dual channel versus single channel, you will get a performance increase but if one drive fails then all data is lost.

got it, thanks; yesterday when i installed my new WD the MB gave me the option to go with RAID but i've read a bit about before and sounded kind of complicated, so i didn't go for it

got it, thanks; yesterday when i installed my new WD the MB gave me the option to go with RAID but i've read a bit about before and sounded kind of complicated, so i didn't go for it

Setting up a raid is a lot easier then it sounds. It depends on the bios of your MB, but I assume if it's supported its fairly easy to set up. You have to wipe the two identical drives clean and make sure the windows installation sees them as one drive, not two.

If it sees it as two drives then you need to install raid drivers for your OS.